


I’ll See You In My Dreams

by BraveNewSoul



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Crying, Dreams and Nightmares, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-18 02:08:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12378666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BraveNewSoul/pseuds/BraveNewSoul
Summary: Dated two days after Bucky Barnes falls. Steve can’t escape his memory, not even in his dreams.





	I’ll See You In My Dreams

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [This Is My Last Breath](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2741975) by [FlyByNightGirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlyByNightGirl/pseuds/FlyByNightGirl). 



When Bucky fell from the train, Steve’s life shattered. His whole world seemed to stop, and he didn’t want to will his feet to move forward any longer. 

He didn’t know how long he lay crumpled on the floor of the train. It couldn’t have been too long. Long enough for the other Commandos to get to him. Long enough for the tip of his nose to freeze and turn as red as his weeping eyes were. 

“Where is he?” Dugan asked, although he wasn’t quite sure he needed an answer. The Captain looked up at him, broken, and sobbed out a single word. 

“Gone.”

Steve would’ve liked to say that he could escape from the pain in his sleep, that his dreams didn’t hold Bucky’s memory or maybe he didn’t dream at all. But of course his subconscious could not allow his heart a break even during his resting hours. 

If you could call them that. 

The first time Bucky appeared in his dreams after the fall was two days following. Steve was back at base, curled in his pitiful cot with one of Bucky’s jackets bundled up under his head like a pillow. His body had been exhausted but his mind was harder to quell. Somehow, he managed. 

When Steve awoke in his subconscious, he found himself in a familiar place. He was no longer big and strong, and his tiny feet were in ratty shoes on worn wood that creaked when he walked. The smell of the ocean was in the air, and he could hear the voices of a crowd that he fell blind to. 

The only other person there with him was Bucky. Even in his dream, his heart was breaking at the sight of what he’d lost. 

But Bucky was not dead. He was alive, standing a foot away and clad in the uniform Steve’d last seen him in. And he was wearing a smile that matched the sunset around them. 

“Bucky.” Steve choked out, a single syllable full of so much pain and yet so much relief. His best friend moved closer, picked up one of the frail artist hands that had sketched their younger faces a hundred times. 

“Don’t cry, Stevie.” Bucky sighed, clicking his tongue as he pulled the small man into his chest. Steve closed his eyes at the smell of his best friend - he smelled like the freezing cold of those snowy mountains but like home, too. “I ain’t gone forever.”

“Bullshit.” The Captain swore, and didn’t stop to apologize for doing so. “I watched you fall, Buck. You couldn’t have survived that.”

Bucky pulled away and held Steve at arm’s length, and his face was so alive and real that Steve forgot that this was all a dream. 

“I’m only gone if you give up.”

Blue eyes blinked dumbly for a few short seconds, and the Captain failed to come up with an explanation for what his best friend meant by those words. He wanted to open up his mouth to ask what he meant, but all that came out was

“Why did you get back up?”

Bucky looked at him for a long moment. He smiled, softly at first and then with teeth. Shook his head and ruffled Steve’s hair. 

“I tol’ you I’d do anything for you. Includin’ die for you if it came to that.”

Tears welled up in Steve’s eyes, and he reached for his best friend only to find that he was suddenly out of reach. Not gone, but untouchable. He wanted to scream.

“What am I supposed to do without you?”

“Live.” Bucky said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Win this war, go home, and keep on goin’ on. Marry Peggy. If anyone deserves your pretty heart, it’s that girl, Stevie.”

“It’s you.” He argued, and he was crying now and reaching for Bucky with small, incapable hands. “It was never meant to be anyone but you, Bucky, please don’t leave me here. You said you never would.”

“Have I ever broken a promise to you, sweetheart?” Bucky was closer now, and his hand was on Steve’s face wiping away the tears that kept falling. Even lost in his mind, Steve could feel the warmth of his touch. “I love you, an’ I always have.”

The Captain blinked to clear his vision, but in the time that it took to do that, Bucky had disappeared. Now it was just Steve in the middle of a Coney Island sunset, the soft wind ruffling his hair like Bucky had just done and would probably never do again. His nose was freezing the same way it’d been two days ago, and his hands felt empty but it was nothing compared to the void in his heart. 

When he opened his eyes to find himself back in Germany, he could still smell salt in the air.


End file.
